Britain's Passenger Rail System Now Renationalized In All But Name, With Franchises Gone

[hatrack]

There’s a scene in The Permanent Way, David Hare’s verbatim play about the railways, in which two old hands talk about John Major government’s privatisation of British Rail. Ministers, we are told, were so keen to bring the rigours of private competition to the network that they’d devised a plan to have two trains serve the same route almost simultaneously. “First one to the next station picks up the passengers,” says an engineer. “Just the overtaking they hadn’t worked out.”

The Conservative party never did work out how to solve that conundrum – but such was its ideological commitment to the idea that “private good, public bad” that privatisation went through all the same. Rail was one of the last of the Thatcher/Major governments’ sell-offs of bits of the state, and it remains one of the most controversial: polls have consistently found public support for renationalisation, but the party’s commitment to private enterprise has remained undimmed.

There’s some irony, then, in the fact that it’s a Conservative government that’s now going a long way towards reversing the work of a predecessor. When individual train operators, such as Northern or KeolisAmey in Wales, have failed, national or devolved governments have stepped in to run trains as “operator of last resort”. And in March, the system of franchises that has held sway for nearly a quarter of a century was suspended, before finally being put out of its misery in September. This is, for passengers, taxpayers, or, indeed, anyone a very good thing.

EDIT

What’s more, the system had three big weaknesses. One is that train operating companies with short-term contracts were simply never going to have the incentive to invest for the long term. Another is that strategic planning was difficult, because the people running the trains were not the same as the people in charge of the infrastructure (first the privately owned Railtrack; later the state-owned Network Rail). The other problem is more recent: there simply isn’t that much commercial interest in the train game any more. In the early days of privatisation, there was room to grow passenger numbers and cost savings to be found. But now the network is full, all the easy efficiencies have been found, and – despite how it may sometimes feel – the government limits ticket price increases. The profit margins available on any given franchise are fairly clear and, perhaps surprisingly, not that high: about 3%, way below, say, supermarkets. So franchisees have stopped bidding. If you’re not a lawyer or consultant responsible for sifting the large piles of paperwork the franchising system generates, it’s hard to see the point of it.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/02/good-riddance-britains-franchised-railway-system-pandemic

[orwell]

1. They privatized the ambulance service...

...in our county years ago. Then the private companies left because it wasn't profitable enough to transport sick people.

Now the fire departments have to do it (county agencies.)

The funny thing is that all the RW fireman rail against the "evil gubmint" while they sit around waiting for fires or transports.

They don't even see that they are the "evil gubmint."

People are strange...

[nwliberalkiwi]

2. M Thatcher

What an evil POS she was. Public should own the transportation networks much cheaper and safer than private ownership.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. It was actually done after she was out

It was John Major as PM, in the 90s.

[Layzeebeaver]

3. All Key elements of a societies infrastructure and supporting services should be nationalised

There are plenty of other ways to make money - And to make that money more easily when the infrastructure and associated services are provided by the state and funded by the taxes on the profits that are made.

Simples.